His first touchdown was a 19-yard pass to running back Tyrell Sutton. He led all players with 89 yards rushing on 17 rushing attempts. His passer rating for that game was 148.26 as Northwestern went on to win 21–3. The following week against New Hampshire on September 9, Kafka went 19–32 and threw for 173 yards along with one interception and a fumble. He rushed for 42 yards. The Wildcats ended up losing the game, 34–17. Kafka played the first half of the game against Eastern Michigan in the third week of the season and rushed for 33 yards with a 6.6 yards per run average, along with his first career rushing touchdown, a six-yard run. He passed for 76 yards and completed 10 out of 18 passes with an interception. Days before Northwestern faced Nevada in the fourth game of the season, head coach Pat Fitzgerald confirmed that Kafka would remain the starter despite his poor prior performances. In the game, Kafka ran for a career-high 111 yards, which included a 13-yard touchdown rush, and averaged 9.2 yards per run. He passed for 122 yards, completing 9 out of 21 passes and three interceptions. His 111 yards rushing were the most by a Northwestern quarterback since Zak Kustok ran for 111 yards in a November 21, 2001, game versus Bowling Green. Kafka suffered a hamstring injury during the game, which kept him out of the next three games of the season. One of the games he missed was the biggest comeback in NCAA Division I-A history, an eventual 41–38 loss to Michigan State on October 21. Kafka made his first appearance since the injury against Ohio State on November 11, in which he passed for 17 yards and completed four out of eight passes. In 2007, Kafka was a backup and only played in two games, in which he passed for 11 yards on two completions and rushed for eight yards. 2008 season Kafka entered the 2008 season as a backup quarterback behind C. J. Bachér. Against Syracuse, Kafka entered the game in the fourth quarter and rushed twice for 18 yards. Against Southern Illinois, he threw two passes, completing one for one yard, in addition to rushing for three yards. He played in the final series at Indiana and completed a pass, which went for nine yards. Starting in place of the injured Bachér for the game against